1. Field
This disclosure relates generally to the field of data processing. More particularly, the disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for performing video signal processing.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical system for video compression/decompression applications is shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B. In FIG. 1A, a video compression/decompression system includes one or multiple one or multiple VRISC, video signal processor (VSP) and multiple application Specific Modules (ASMs) in the system, and in FIG. 1B, the ASMs are replaced with multiple entropy decoders and a motion estimation unit. The VRISC handles the high-level tasks management. There are in the system. The Application Specific Modules (ASMs) are designed to support some specific functions that are not easily done by VSP or VRISC. The ASMs are considered as the extension engines of the VSP. The encoder requires the ASM with a capability of variable length encoding and does not require the ASM with variable length decoding, and the decoder requires the ASM with a capability of variable length decoding and does not require variable length encoding.
The VSP is scalable for ultra-high performance video coding and processing. One or more VSPs can be embedded in the video system to exploit the high-level data parallelism or task parallelism. In FIGS. 1A and 1B, two VSPs are respectively used. What is needed is a VSP providing high computation throughput as well as high Input/Output (IO) throughput. The VSP provides efficient synchronization mechanism for IO and computation. IO and computation can be done in parallel so that IO transfer cycles can be hidden. The VSP provides efficient communication mechanism with external processors. The VSP has efficient communication interface with DMA engine, VRISC and VLX.